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So, the move-in is ... well, it's going. Slowly. The movers delivered our household goods on Friday and we have been unpacking, shifting, and sorting ever since. Thankfully, Nick had the fabulous suggestion of staying in temporary housing a couple of extra days so that we wouldn't have to rush to set up the bed, find and unpack the sheets, dig out pillows, etc. Sunday was our first night here at our new house, and despite the fact that it still looks like a bit of a disaster, we love it!
We gained some square footage and another bedroom and bathroom in this move, but lost our patio and garage ... so in reality, storage-wise, we're pretty even. Because our living space is so open and HUGE, we are partitioning off the far end toward the master bedroom for an office / study space. And because we don't need to use one of the bedrooms as an office, one will be a dedicated guest room (yes, we will be buying another bed, Mom. No more AeroBed for you!) and the third bedroom is going to be a general storage room. But even with all this space, we are still being buried by boxes, despite my efforts to break down as many as possible and consolidate the paper packing waste. I had a DIY therapy session yesterday morning that involved me stepping into the big DishPack boxes and stomping down the paper to compress it - it was like that episode of I Love Lucy with the grape-stomping, only ... not.
Oh! Did I mention that this apartment has a huge master bedroom closet? In New York City, this thing would've been classified as another bedroom ... it's HUUUUUGE!! Even Nick has been gleeful about having a closet that can double as a dressing room. It makes me so happy, I don't even mind not having a double sink in the master bath.
Once we have everything set up and unpacked, I'll be sure to take some pictures and post 'em. But 'til then, please let this blog post serve as the open invitation to COME and VISIT Erin and Nick in Dayton!!*
* (it's cooler than you might think)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Utah, part II
Big news here from Dayton! Nick and I successfully found a sweet apartment and are signing the lease today (Thursday) and moving in TOMORROW (Friday)!! We (I) had centralized our search to the downtown area, with particular focus on two historic neighborhoods, South Park and the Oregon district. I had read a lot about South Park online - it was named neighborhood of the year in '08 and consists of mostly turn-of-the-century victorians and craftsman, many of which have been lovingly restored. The part that really attracted me to the area was the neighborliness: everyone meets on Friday nights at the South Park Tavern (which has 18 taps dispensing microbrews from all over the country), during the late spring through fall they have rotating "porch and patio" parties that migrate from one person's house to another, and everyone knows EVERYONE. We got a real warm fuzzy from the area. Rentals in the district are hard to come by, but we looked at two houses, both of which were bigger than our needs and at the upper end of our price range. I also looked in the Oregon district which is immediately North of South Park and has just about all of the hip restaurants in Dayton ... but no rentals fitting our bill. About three blocks North of the Oregon is a block called the Cannery district, which is a series of several old buildings that have been restored and converted to loft spaces - we looked at a couple of floor plans and really fell in love with one that is a corner/end unit with something like 13 huge windows (5 of which still open!) and a huge open floor plan. If you go to www.cannerydayton.com and look at the floor plans, it's the 3br plan named "Barney Power," which is an odd name for a floor plan but is apparently named after one of the builders, a Mr. Barney, who constructed the building in which our floor plan exists and his company which provided electric power to the other buildings on the block (power). Anyway, the size is just right for us. And the location couldn't be better - we are easy walking distance to the Oregon and to South Park Tavern, our immediate downstairs neighbor is a huge wine shop that also does tastings and is perhaps the only decent wine shop in Dayton (you know, the kind where the owners actually taste the wine they buy), next to the wine shop is a huge art gallery / coop, next to that is the only real nightlife in Dayton (Therapy Cafe), and next to that is the only proper tea shop in the city as well. Oh, and two blocks Northeast of us is the 2nd Street Market, the biggest farmer's market in the region. Those of you who got to hear me whine about leaving San Diego and Be Wise Ranch and all of my lovely farm-fresh produce will realize how big a plus that is for me. (and speaking of farmer's markets, we stopped by one close to Wright-Patt just yesterday in hopes of finding a little something for lunch and perhaps some veggies: it was adorable in that it was only 5 or 6 stalls, but the prices were outrageously low. I got four amazing heirloom tomatoes for A BUCK. Best tomatoes I think I've ever tasted in my life, by the way.)
So we'll have a new address soon. I don't want to post it online for anyone out there in cyberspace to find, but if you need it, go ahead and email me and I'll send it directly to you. Nick and I are keeping our (619) cell phone numbers and probably won't bother getting a house phone in the new place, so we can still be reached at those numbers.
Okay, so updates aside, I wanted to give you the final chapter in our cross-country drive. After a night in Green River, we woke up early and headed right out for Arches Nat'l Park. The drive was, again, beautiful, although we seemed to come upon the scenery much more abruptly than on our previous drives. The road went from vast plains with distant buttes to WHAM! Pillars of gorgeousness!!
(as you can probably tell, these were all taken from a moving car - a recurring theme here. So forgive me if the foregrounds are a bit blurry. Can't be helped.)
We arrived at the park around 9 and couldn't help stopping at every pullout, every scenic point. From the moment you enter the park, you head up a series of switchbacks that end up giving a fantastic view of the road below and, as it turns out, of the Moab fault line that runs along the opposite hillside just up from the road (you can't really make it out by eye, even in person. I just had to trust that the little placquard explaining the whole thing wasn't lying.)
Again, we had frustratingly little time to spend in the park, so we tried to limit ourselves to views from the car or very short walks. The first real viewpoint that you encounter in the park is for what is called "Park Avenue," a series of jutting formations that do sort of resemble walking around downtown New York City (or any big city, for that matter) with skyscrapers on either side of you. Although I think Park Avenue ought to be seriously flattered by this comparison. We were there early enough that the sun was still pretty far to the East, leaving most of Park Avenue in shadow. So no pictures. But we continued on to the Courthouse Towers, which includes the "Three Gossips":
Across from the Courthouse Towers is a formation known as The Organ, which rises out of the surrounding rock and really does resemble the kind of organ pipes you'd find in an old European cathedral or something. This shot was from the car as we approached it (with the Tower of Babel in the background):
Although the sun wasn't in a favorable position, this shot was too tempting to resist. We were the only car in this pulloff to view the Courthouse Towers; the parking lot was at the base of The Organ. I loved being able to get a sense of scale from the Prius at its foot (even though there's a bit of distortion from the wide-angle lens and the picture badly needs to have the horizon straightened):
Looking North from the viewpoint, The Tower of Babel was clearer, and damn if it wasn't ah-maze-ing:
Next up was "Balanced Rock," which is pretty much what you expect it to be, only taller and larger than we expected. This was one of the many formations that has a short path leading to it; in this case, the path circled around the base and allowed us to see it up close from many different angles. Nick decided to wear a shirt that just happened to be the same color as the rocks ... see if you can spot him (sorry for the picture being kind of dark - I edited this one in the car and I don't know why it ended up this way):
Arches, much like Bryce, is accessed by one main road with several short offshoots. We sort of missed the first one. Well, we saw it, but a lot of stupid drivers were turning down it so we decided to keep heading North, away from the unwashed masses. Turns out, that road leads to some of the most famous formations, including the Windows arches ... once we realized this, we made a pact to hit it on the way out of the park. We took the next offshoot, though, toward the MOST famous arch in the park, Delicate Arch. Turns out the only way to really get close to the arch is to take a hike that was going to take way more time than we had budgeted. I was bummed but, as Nick reminded me, this trip was just a taste. And how happy would I REALLY have been, hiking 3 miles with 1,000 ft elevation gain, in 95 degree heat? Good point, husband. Good thing he looks out for my sanity (and his). So we sort of viewed it from a distance, pronounced it lovely, and continued back to the main road and farther North toward the Fiery Furnance (only accessible by ranger-led trails) and the far Northern end of the park.
The views were ever-changing through this part of the park, and we were both startled by the vast array of KINDS of landscape we saw in a very short distance. We saw everything from open, scrub-covered rolling plains to gargantuan formations the size of a city block, and even the types of rock seemed to change. In the Fiery Furnace region, the peaks were small and bulbous and tightly clustered, but just past it the land opened up and there were more individual pillars spaced farther apart. (one theme, however, that was consistent throughout the park were the distinct phallic shapes. I know I'm a bit of a dirty bird who maybe doesn't have the cleanest mind to begin with ... but seriously. Phallis. Everywhere. I mean, c'mon.)
There were also many of these half-caves, half-arches, the result of weathering that will someday result in an arch in the rock.
Oh, and see? I was there! (I love my sideview mirror shots. I actually specifically CLEAN the passenger window and mirror at each gas station so that these shots are possible. Sad, I know. But are you really that surprised?)
Some sweet clouds moved in just as we approached Skyline Arch:
And we continued to the very Northern end of the Arches Drive where the only park campground and the main trailhead to most of the other arches exist. We drove through the campground quickly and were surprised by not only how beautiful it was, with campsites tucked into the red rocks or with sweeping views of the nearby hills, but how well-equipped it is, with dishwashing stations and several toilet and shower facilities. When I told my mom how much I liked the campgrounds, she told me about when she and my dad had camped there in their mid-20s and had to rig their own shower by balancing a bucket with a spout on a rock ledge above their campsite. Of course, back then there probably wasn't an 8-month waiting list to get a campsite ... but some things are just worth the wait!!
On our drive out of the park, we stopped at the cutoff for viewing the Windows. We thought we were being smart by not hitting it first thing in the morning, and by large we managed to avoid crowds in the rest of the park by jumping ahead of the rest of the early morning crowd. But we didn't really expect so many people to be in this particular section of the park, as it was going on noon. Anyway, we took our time along the winding drive toward the trailhead for the Window Arches. We saw the Cove of Caves:
And the Parade of Elephants:
Some more phallic pillars (and the very beginning of an arch):
And sweeping panoramas of the Arches country:
We climbed up on top of a little hump to get those shots, and while we were up there, Nick happened to notice what may have actually been the tiniest arch in the entire park!
And of course he had to say he had "been there" and "done that" and "traversed the arch." I just had to have photographic evidence:
Yes, dorks are we.
Our Arches detour was a bit longer than we'd orginially intended, and we still had some long hours in the car ahead of us before getting into Denver. I took over driving shortly after Arches, and we really enjoyed the Colorado country. By any other standards, it was spectacular. After just driving through Utah's most lovely and impressive land, though ... it was just ... nice. But the skies were clear (although obscenely hot the entire time. Leave it to us to find the heat wave and go straight toward it!) and we followed the Colorado River almost the entire time. We started to notice some ridiculously nice-looking homes and realized we were nearing Vail - I figured we must be getting close to the mountain passes that would take us over the continental divide. And yes, we were soon at 12,000 ft on a very steep road with the poor Prius loaded to the absolute gills ... guess what? I found the limits of my car! Now, this is kind of a point of pride for me, as I often jump to the defense of my hybrid when people joke around about how it must "putter" or "whir" or whatever other misconceived notions they have about it being slow/dottery. 'Cause I'M not the one who's merging onto the highway too slowly or who can't find the gas to escape nasty traffic situations. I MAY have told someone that if I ever found 'em on the road, I'd smoke 'em. And, largely, that's true. The Prius has some zip. But not at oxygen-starved 12,000 at Loveland Pass. And not full loaded. And certainly not when I'm stuck behind a camper-towing SUV who decided to slow down to FORTY-FIVE mph at a whim. OFTEN. I was actually screaming at the d.b. "DON'T YOU KNOW I CAN'T ACCELERATE?!?!" Oh well. My pride may have been wounded, but we all made it through without a problem and enjoyed our descent into Denver. We wanted to stop in the city for dinner, and Nick had picked out a brewpub that's right across from the ballpark. Only after exiting the highway did we realize that it was a game night ... and that the game would be starting in just over an hour. Thankfully, once we got through dealing with pedestrains and dumb drivers, most of the parking in the area was just 2-hour and therefore empty. We parked, we ate, we had a beer, and we continued to the old, odd, and somewhat seedy town of Limon. We were EXHAUSTED and it was late, so we picked the cheapest AAA-rated place that had WiFi and crashed for the night. We didn't get in til well past dark, but we saw a beautiful sunset. Here are the last moments of light:
The rest of our trip was more about family and friends and less about scenery - especially since we had to drive through the length of Kansas. I mean, Kansas was nice enough. It's a lot like Illinois, only less flat. And more bugs. And SO MUCH HEADWIND. I actually got the lowest mpg I've ever had in the Prius. We stopped for a couple small meals in Hayes (at Al's Chickenette, a famous bastion of fried-chicken amazingness) and Salina (at the Cozy Inn, where sliders still get made the way White Castle used to, before they were corrupted by gross grease and corporate greed). These towns were fascinating to me, because they were obviously centered around the grain industry and the huge grain elevators lining the train tracks through the hearts of the towns. But ... everything just seemed ... dead. The elevators didn't look like they'd been used in 50 years (and we saw plenty of active elevators as we drove through the state). The train tracks looked to be in disrepair. The old buildings around the tracks, such as train stations, old city halls, etc, looked like they hadn't been touched in decades upon decades. And then, you drive three blocks over to the part of town they've (tried to) revitalize, and you see men in suits with briefcases! It was just ... bizarre. And now that we're in Dayton, I can see how this town, not only having lost the big GM plant about 8 months ago but also several huge long-standing corporations that employed thousands of Daytonians in the last few months, could have that kind of future. I sure hope not - I am growing fond of this little city. But you see how an industry dies and the city sort of tries to exist, tries to hold on, and tries to act like those brick or concrete symbols of the industries on which the city was founded are just OKAY THE WAY THEY ARE and that they need to be there JUST IN CASE. I have seen so so many beautiful brick warehouses here in downtown Dayton that are just sitting empty, totally and completely EMPTY and have been for years ... and there are just more and more added to the rolls every month. As the economy evolves it'll be interesting to see how Dayton rides the wave.
Anyway. We spent the night in Kansas City and got to spend time with Nick's high school friend Scott and his wife and daughters, then rolled on to St. Louis the following morning to spend a day and night with Nick's brothers Matt and Chris, my sister-in-law Kate, and our nephews Braydan and Josh. After days of eating in the car or at odd hours, it was nice to just sit and relax and have a home-cooked meal! We drove out to Edwardsville to have breakfast with Matt and Braydan on Saturday morning and then continued up to Chicago to first spend some time with the Braces (Randy and Jenni and Kayla drove down for dinner, and my aunt Jo Ann, uncle Peter, and their kids Alex, Peter, and Ashley all came by for the festivities, too!), and then we moved on to my in-laws' house in Homewood for the night. Bob and Lynda have temporarily adopted wee Natasha and Naski during this transition time, and it was fun to spend time with them and see how they've acclimated to their new surroundings. Natasha loves having space to escape from Naski's irrirating stalking behavior, and Naski has most definitely warmed up to them both, especially Bob. He was a little wary of us ... but soon figured out that we were pretty much okay. I loved having Natasha realize "OMG! It's MOM!" but she wouldn't leave me alone ALL NIGHT, constantly jumping onto the bed, nuzzling my face, and pestering me for love and attention. I miss my kids.
Sunday morning we enjoyed brunch with the Sinnokraks and then had to bid adieu to Chicago to start the first of many road trips between Chi-town and Dayton.
And now we're HERE! And finding things to like about Dayton. Still haven't found a JOB, but you know ... all in good time?
So we'll have a new address soon. I don't want to post it online for anyone out there in cyberspace to find, but if you need it, go ahead and email me and I'll send it directly to you. Nick and I are keeping our (619) cell phone numbers and probably won't bother getting a house phone in the new place, so we can still be reached at those numbers.
Okay, so updates aside, I wanted to give you the final chapter in our cross-country drive. After a night in Green River, we woke up early and headed right out for Arches Nat'l Park. The drive was, again, beautiful, although we seemed to come upon the scenery much more abruptly than on our previous drives. The road went from vast plains with distant buttes to WHAM! Pillars of gorgeousness!!
(as you can probably tell, these were all taken from a moving car - a recurring theme here. So forgive me if the foregrounds are a bit blurry. Can't be helped.)We arrived at the park around 9 and couldn't help stopping at every pullout, every scenic point. From the moment you enter the park, you head up a series of switchbacks that end up giving a fantastic view of the road below and, as it turns out, of the Moab fault line that runs along the opposite hillside just up from the road (you can't really make it out by eye, even in person. I just had to trust that the little placquard explaining the whole thing wasn't lying.)
Again, we had frustratingly little time to spend in the park, so we tried to limit ourselves to views from the car or very short walks. The first real viewpoint that you encounter in the park is for what is called "Park Avenue," a series of jutting formations that do sort of resemble walking around downtown New York City (or any big city, for that matter) with skyscrapers on either side of you. Although I think Park Avenue ought to be seriously flattered by this comparison. We were there early enough that the sun was still pretty far to the East, leaving most of Park Avenue in shadow. So no pictures. But we continued on to the Courthouse Towers, which includes the "Three Gossips":
Across from the Courthouse Towers is a formation known as The Organ, which rises out of the surrounding rock and really does resemble the kind of organ pipes you'd find in an old European cathedral or something. This shot was from the car as we approached it (with the Tower of Babel in the background):
Although the sun wasn't in a favorable position, this shot was too tempting to resist. We were the only car in this pulloff to view the Courthouse Towers; the parking lot was at the base of The Organ. I loved being able to get a sense of scale from the Prius at its foot (even though there's a bit of distortion from the wide-angle lens and the picture badly needs to have the horizon straightened):
Looking North from the viewpoint, The Tower of Babel was clearer, and damn if it wasn't ah-maze-ing:
Next up was "Balanced Rock," which is pretty much what you expect it to be, only taller and larger than we expected. This was one of the many formations that has a short path leading to it; in this case, the path circled around the base and allowed us to see it up close from many different angles. Nick decided to wear a shirt that just happened to be the same color as the rocks ... see if you can spot him (sorry for the picture being kind of dark - I edited this one in the car and I don't know why it ended up this way):
Arches, much like Bryce, is accessed by one main road with several short offshoots. We sort of missed the first one. Well, we saw it, but a lot of stupid drivers were turning down it so we decided to keep heading North, away from the unwashed masses. Turns out, that road leads to some of the most famous formations, including the Windows arches ... once we realized this, we made a pact to hit it on the way out of the park. We took the next offshoot, though, toward the MOST famous arch in the park, Delicate Arch. Turns out the only way to really get close to the arch is to take a hike that was going to take way more time than we had budgeted. I was bummed but, as Nick reminded me, this trip was just a taste. And how happy would I REALLY have been, hiking 3 miles with 1,000 ft elevation gain, in 95 degree heat? Good point, husband. Good thing he looks out for my sanity (and his). So we sort of viewed it from a distance, pronounced it lovely, and continued back to the main road and farther North toward the Fiery Furnance (only accessible by ranger-led trails) and the far Northern end of the park.The views were ever-changing through this part of the park, and we were both startled by the vast array of KINDS of landscape we saw in a very short distance. We saw everything from open, scrub-covered rolling plains to gargantuan formations the size of a city block, and even the types of rock seemed to change. In the Fiery Furnace region, the peaks were small and bulbous and tightly clustered, but just past it the land opened up and there were more individual pillars spaced farther apart. (one theme, however, that was consistent throughout the park were the distinct phallic shapes. I know I'm a bit of a dirty bird who maybe doesn't have the cleanest mind to begin with ... but seriously. Phallis. Everywhere. I mean, c'mon.)
There were also many of these half-caves, half-arches, the result of weathering that will someday result in an arch in the rock.
Oh, and see? I was there! (I love my sideview mirror shots. I actually specifically CLEAN the passenger window and mirror at each gas station so that these shots are possible. Sad, I know. But are you really that surprised?)
Some sweet clouds moved in just as we approached Skyline Arch:
And we continued to the very Northern end of the Arches Drive where the only park campground and the main trailhead to most of the other arches exist. We drove through the campground quickly and were surprised by not only how beautiful it was, with campsites tucked into the red rocks or with sweeping views of the nearby hills, but how well-equipped it is, with dishwashing stations and several toilet and shower facilities. When I told my mom how much I liked the campgrounds, she told me about when she and my dad had camped there in their mid-20s and had to rig their own shower by balancing a bucket with a spout on a rock ledge above their campsite. Of course, back then there probably wasn't an 8-month waiting list to get a campsite ... but some things are just worth the wait!!
On our drive out of the park, we stopped at the cutoff for viewing the Windows. We thought we were being smart by not hitting it first thing in the morning, and by large we managed to avoid crowds in the rest of the park by jumping ahead of the rest of the early morning crowd. But we didn't really expect so many people to be in this particular section of the park, as it was going on noon. Anyway, we took our time along the winding drive toward the trailhead for the Window Arches. We saw the Cove of Caves:
And the Parade of Elephants:
Some more phallic pillars (and the very beginning of an arch):
And sweeping panoramas of the Arches country:
We climbed up on top of a little hump to get those shots, and while we were up there, Nick happened to notice what may have actually been the tiniest arch in the entire park!
And of course he had to say he had "been there" and "done that" and "traversed the arch." I just had to have photographic evidence:
Yes, dorks are we.
Our Arches detour was a bit longer than we'd orginially intended, and we still had some long hours in the car ahead of us before getting into Denver. I took over driving shortly after Arches, and we really enjoyed the Colorado country. By any other standards, it was spectacular. After just driving through Utah's most lovely and impressive land, though ... it was just ... nice. But the skies were clear (although obscenely hot the entire time. Leave it to us to find the heat wave and go straight toward it!) and we followed the Colorado River almost the entire time. We started to notice some ridiculously nice-looking homes and realized we were nearing Vail - I figured we must be getting close to the mountain passes that would take us over the continental divide. And yes, we were soon at 12,000 ft on a very steep road with the poor Prius loaded to the absolute gills ... guess what? I found the limits of my car! Now, this is kind of a point of pride for me, as I often jump to the defense of my hybrid when people joke around about how it must "putter" or "whir" or whatever other misconceived notions they have about it being slow/dottery. 'Cause I'M not the one who's merging onto the highway too slowly or who can't find the gas to escape nasty traffic situations. I MAY have told someone that if I ever found 'em on the road, I'd smoke 'em. And, largely, that's true. The Prius has some zip. But not at oxygen-starved 12,000 at Loveland Pass. And not full loaded. And certainly not when I'm stuck behind a camper-towing SUV who decided to slow down to FORTY-FIVE mph at a whim. OFTEN. I was actually screaming at the d.b. "DON'T YOU KNOW I CAN'T ACCELERATE?!?!" Oh well. My pride may have been wounded, but we all made it through without a problem and enjoyed our descent into Denver. We wanted to stop in the city for dinner, and Nick had picked out a brewpub that's right across from the ballpark. Only after exiting the highway did we realize that it was a game night ... and that the game would be starting in just over an hour. Thankfully, once we got through dealing with pedestrains and dumb drivers, most of the parking in the area was just 2-hour and therefore empty. We parked, we ate, we had a beer, and we continued to the old, odd, and somewhat seedy town of Limon. We were EXHAUSTED and it was late, so we picked the cheapest AAA-rated place that had WiFi and crashed for the night. We didn't get in til well past dark, but we saw a beautiful sunset. Here are the last moments of light:
The rest of our trip was more about family and friends and less about scenery - especially since we had to drive through the length of Kansas. I mean, Kansas was nice enough. It's a lot like Illinois, only less flat. And more bugs. And SO MUCH HEADWIND. I actually got the lowest mpg I've ever had in the Prius. We stopped for a couple small meals in Hayes (at Al's Chickenette, a famous bastion of fried-chicken amazingness) and Salina (at the Cozy Inn, where sliders still get made the way White Castle used to, before they were corrupted by gross grease and corporate greed). These towns were fascinating to me, because they were obviously centered around the grain industry and the huge grain elevators lining the train tracks through the hearts of the towns. But ... everything just seemed ... dead. The elevators didn't look like they'd been used in 50 years (and we saw plenty of active elevators as we drove through the state). The train tracks looked to be in disrepair. The old buildings around the tracks, such as train stations, old city halls, etc, looked like they hadn't been touched in decades upon decades. And then, you drive three blocks over to the part of town they've (tried to) revitalize, and you see men in suits with briefcases! It was just ... bizarre. And now that we're in Dayton, I can see how this town, not only having lost the big GM plant about 8 months ago but also several huge long-standing corporations that employed thousands of Daytonians in the last few months, could have that kind of future. I sure hope not - I am growing fond of this little city. But you see how an industry dies and the city sort of tries to exist, tries to hold on, and tries to act like those brick or concrete symbols of the industries on which the city was founded are just OKAY THE WAY THEY ARE and that they need to be there JUST IN CASE. I have seen so so many beautiful brick warehouses here in downtown Dayton that are just sitting empty, totally and completely EMPTY and have been for years ... and there are just more and more added to the rolls every month. As the economy evolves it'll be interesting to see how Dayton rides the wave.
Anyway. We spent the night in Kansas City and got to spend time with Nick's high school friend Scott and his wife and daughters, then rolled on to St. Louis the following morning to spend a day and night with Nick's brothers Matt and Chris, my sister-in-law Kate, and our nephews Braydan and Josh. After days of eating in the car or at odd hours, it was nice to just sit and relax and have a home-cooked meal! We drove out to Edwardsville to have breakfast with Matt and Braydan on Saturday morning and then continued up to Chicago to first spend some time with the Braces (Randy and Jenni and Kayla drove down for dinner, and my aunt Jo Ann, uncle Peter, and their kids Alex, Peter, and Ashley all came by for the festivities, too!), and then we moved on to my in-laws' house in Homewood for the night. Bob and Lynda have temporarily adopted wee Natasha and Naski during this transition time, and it was fun to spend time with them and see how they've acclimated to their new surroundings. Natasha loves having space to escape from Naski's irrirating stalking behavior, and Naski has most definitely warmed up to them both, especially Bob. He was a little wary of us ... but soon figured out that we were pretty much okay. I loved having Natasha realize "OMG! It's MOM!" but she wouldn't leave me alone ALL NIGHT, constantly jumping onto the bed, nuzzling my face, and pestering me for love and attention. I miss my kids.
Sunday morning we enjoyed brunch with the Sinnokraks and then had to bid adieu to Chicago to start the first of many road trips between Chi-town and Dayton.
And now we're HERE! And finding things to like about Dayton. Still haven't found a JOB, but you know ... all in good time?
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Utah, part I
So. It's official. Nick and I are Daytonians.
We arrived Sunday evening at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and checked into our pre-reserved temporary lodging that will be our pit stop until we find an apartment/house. And there's progress on that front, but I hesitate to write anything about it as I don't want to jinx anything. But it's looking good so far.
I have to say, I was a *bit* concerned as the receptionist at the Inn directed us not to a hotel room but to another building ... and as we drove through the temporary housing area, a collection of one- and two-story duplexes, there was a HUGE bulldozer and a half-torn-down building that happened to look very similar to the rest of the units we were passing. That is to say, Nick and I both silently sat in the car, thinking "AREYOUFUCKINGKIDDINGME? We're being sent to condemned freakin' housing. Only they haven't gotten to ripping OUR shithole down yet." And we had no idea how long we'd be staying here ... so our throats both started to sort of close up in anticipation (dread?) of what we'd find. Neither one of us wanting to be the first to say anything, we gingerly opened the front door (like we thought it was going to come crashing off its hinges or something) and shot each other somewhat confused looks when ... lo and behold ... this place was NICE. As in, full kitchen with nice appliances and dining room furniture, big living room with a flat screen TV, and two well-appointed bedrooms. Clean carpet, nice floors - in fact, it looked to have been relatively recently remodeled. So I guess the Air Force DOES know how to take care of their people after all. Huh.
It's hard for me to believe it's only been one full day here: what a day it's been! We went over to the medical center to square away the transfer of my health care and records, Nick went over and checked out the AFIT campus on base and met up with his sponsor, a former S-3B guy who's here working on his PhD, we went grocery shopping at the commissary on base, and then we went and looked at some apartments in the downtown area and one other neighborhood that had piqued my interest. Like I said ... progress.
I had a little time in the car on the way through Kansas to sort through and do some very (very) rough editing of my shots from our first day in Utah, and in my procrastination to get anything up on the blog in the last few days, I managed to get through the second day as well.
So let's see, where did I leave off? Ah yes, St. George. Lovely desert hamlet. Friendly people. We departed as early as we could muster the next morning for a 40-minute drive into Zion Nat'l Park. Almost immediately, the landscape became more rugged and riddled with red peaks jutting up from the middle of incredibly flat stretches of desert scrub.
(this following image is one of my faves from the day, though sadly it ended up a bit oversaturated during my in-car rudimentary postprocessing. This is one I'll work on once my picture monster desktop is up and running again in our new place.)
Oh, and one more note about the post-processing: after I started looking through the images, I noticed that HOLY HELL I have a lot of dust on my sensor. Maybe from switching lenses five or six (or more) times a day in Alaska? Or even more frequently here on the road trip? (that's rhetorical) The dust gets progressively worse through the first day and you'll notice some really bad dots on shots from the second day. I will be editing these spots out of the "keepers" but I need dear old Photoshop to do that well, so for now you can curse the evil dust along with me.
Because Zion is an incredibly popular park, there is almost no parking inside the park, and there is basically one main road that takes you to all of the sights, the National Parks people decided to limit the number of cars on the road in the park. Now, the main drag is accessible only by shuttle bus, and as we just didn't have the time to hop on, hop off, etc (and it was already upwards of 90 degrees at 9:30 am), we chose to drive on through the park and leave Zion unchecked on our bucket lists. But we certainly got an appreciation for the architectural peaks and mesas (buttes?), and we were there early enough in the morning to still have the moon hanging in the unbelievably blue sky:
And the drive, of course, was beautiful. We climbed up on a series of switchbacks that overlooked the main canyon of the park and then passed through two long tunnels carved into the side of the mountain. Here's a shot as we entered one of the tunnels, looking back through the side-view mirror at the stunning peaks behind us:
As we continued our drive through the park, we started to notice the fascinating patterns that the wind and weather had worn into the sandstone. Some of it, like this, was more of a horizontal slashing, while other patterns closer to the tops of peaks were more vertical:
And then we got to Checkerboard Mesa, so named for the horizontal and vertical slashing that creates a sort of grid on the side of this windswept mesa.
I could type out the explanation for this amazing geological phenomenon, but seeing as I took a picture of the sign at the viewpoint, I'll let you read it as I did:
I should have realized this was the Easternmost stop in the park when a busload of weary-looking European tourists unloaded and excitedly paced from one end of the viewpoint to the other, snapping pictures. Hey, when your first sight of Zion is Checkerboard Mesa ... well, I couldn't really blame them (too much) for hogging every good self-timed portrait shot. Sure enough, we soon exited the park and were on toward Bryce. We had one of those great road trip moments as we were driving along (well, NICK was driving along. I was staring, stupefied, out the window). We rounded a curve and it looked like we were going to be passing over a small river or a mini gorge or something: the land was pretty flat and there were no super duper special geological features on the near horizon. Then, out of nowhere, we drove over a little bridge and HOLY CRAP! The view off to the right was like a miniature Grand Canyon!! The picture didn't really work (I was kind of shooting into the sun and there was enough respiration from all of the trees out there that there was a bit of a haze), but maybe it'll give you a sense of something:
We had a pretty peaceful drive through the Utah backcountry as we approached Bryce Canyon National Park. Just outside of Bryce, we went through a portion of the Dixie National Forest known as Red Canyon, which was probably the most intense color I had seen in a long time.
There was a nice little pulloff and we stopped to take a few pictures, but we were also happy to feel that the temperature had dropped a few degrees (we had gained significant elevation). As we continued toward the Bryce entrance, we started seeing more and more reddish orange rock interspersed with the normal gray granite:
And then, voila! We were at Bryce. Thankfully, unlike Zion, you can drive the main road and its little offshoots, and we pulled into the first of many parking areas to explore the main "ampitheater." You can actually walk the whole rim of the ampitheater (so named because it's a crescent-shaped rim that envelopes a deep gorge filled with these AMAZING formations called Hoodoos) but we sadly didn't have time!
The Hoodoos are incredible, spiny, veiny spindles that are formed through erosion by water and ice and are distinct to this one small area of Utah. The presence of multiple kinds of sandstone layered on top of one another is what allows for the kind of weathering that produces these bizarre and fascinating formations. I realized, after looking through my pictures, that it's a) impossible to convey the magnitude of the expansive ampitheater, b) unlikely that pictures could give a sense of scale of the individual Hoodoos, and c) still awesome to see in pictures.
Nick and I wandered around Sunset Point and hiked a short trail up to Inspiration Point, all the while walking in a sort of dazed and amazed stupor. The beauty of this country leaves me speechless; that it CAN leave me (ME!) speechless is stupefying. It's easy to see why Native Americans worshiped gods of nature and natural forces: if we didn't have knowledge of geology, time, and science, wouldn't we also assume that supreme beings put those mountains, those hoodoos, those arches, in exactly the place they wanted? To be worshiped as pillars of strength and beauty, monuments so many thousands of times more beautiful and delicate, intricate and colossal than humans could ever dream of creating? As we drove around, Nick and I wondered when in the evolution of man did he begin to appreciate natural beauty? We know that early homo sapiens were drawn to water sources for food and survival and natural caves for shelter ... but when did we as a species begin to look at the world around us and have our breath taken away by the grandeur and grace? Does it date back to the same time we started making practical objects from an aesthetic point of view? Did nature inspire us to do that? It's enough to make the heads of a couple of agnostic thinky people like us spin (see them spinning?).
A little farther down the main drive in Bryce, we came across a pullout for a view of one lonely arch (Bryce doesn't have many):
And we saw so much more, but for the sake of brevity (I know, I know - TOO LATE!), I will just say that Bryce was someplace we really look forward to returning to for an extended stay and hiking. There are some great trails that are easily accessible to the average day hiker that take you down below the rim so you can hike with the hoodoos! And because Bryce is at 8000-9000+ feet elevation, even in the summer is it far more temperate than the other Utah parks. And once you acclimate to the incredibly wee amount of oxygen in the air at that height, I think a Bryce hiking/camping trip would be an excellent adventure indeed.
We had toyed with the idea of staying North of Bryce, just outside of Capitol Reef National Park, in the tiny hamlet of Torrey. The town has just 141 residents but somehow supports several restaurants and no fewer than six hotels ... go figure. Nick had read in our trust AAA Utah guide book about a locally famous restaurant called Cafe Diablo which, as we found out from our waitress, is listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die. The food was divine, although the portions were absolutely mind-bogglingly huge. We each had an app (Nick had rattlesnake cakes, I had a duck salad with jicama slaw) and were so stuffed from those we were really glad we'd decided to split an entree (pumpkin seed-crusted local trout). The setting was totally idyllic and the food left us rested and relaxed. We decided to continue on through Capitol Reef and stay in Green River (it may have had something to do with nostalgia for the name ...). The drive through Capitol Reef lasted through the magic hour before dusk, and it could not have been more appropriately named!
We stumbled upon this one-room building along the road in the park, and although it was just being shaded by the adjacent peak, there was still enough light to capture the scene. This building was nearby and similar in appearance to the historic Fruita school, a one-room schoolhouse founded by the Mormons shortly after they settled the area, though there was no plaque at this building indicating its purpose or history.
We stopped to get one last panorama during the moments just before the sun set:
And thus ended our marathon day of National Park-ing. It couldn't have been better! We pulled into Green River late and exhausted but oddly energized. But it still hadn't really hit us that we were MOVING across the country instead of just VISITING some parks on vacation. The first revelations started to come the following day ...
Which I will blog about once my fingers have recovered from this post. =)
We arrived Sunday evening at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and checked into our pre-reserved temporary lodging that will be our pit stop until we find an apartment/house. And there's progress on that front, but I hesitate to write anything about it as I don't want to jinx anything. But it's looking good so far.
I have to say, I was a *bit* concerned as the receptionist at the Inn directed us not to a hotel room but to another building ... and as we drove through the temporary housing area, a collection of one- and two-story duplexes, there was a HUGE bulldozer and a half-torn-down building that happened to look very similar to the rest of the units we were passing. That is to say, Nick and I both silently sat in the car, thinking "AREYOUFUCKINGKIDDINGME? We're being sent to condemned freakin' housing. Only they haven't gotten to ripping OUR shithole down yet." And we had no idea how long we'd be staying here ... so our throats both started to sort of close up in anticipation (dread?) of what we'd find. Neither one of us wanting to be the first to say anything, we gingerly opened the front door (like we thought it was going to come crashing off its hinges or something) and shot each other somewhat confused looks when ... lo and behold ... this place was NICE. As in, full kitchen with nice appliances and dining room furniture, big living room with a flat screen TV, and two well-appointed bedrooms. Clean carpet, nice floors - in fact, it looked to have been relatively recently remodeled. So I guess the Air Force DOES know how to take care of their people after all. Huh.
It's hard for me to believe it's only been one full day here: what a day it's been! We went over to the medical center to square away the transfer of my health care and records, Nick went over and checked out the AFIT campus on base and met up with his sponsor, a former S-3B guy who's here working on his PhD, we went grocery shopping at the commissary on base, and then we went and looked at some apartments in the downtown area and one other neighborhood that had piqued my interest. Like I said ... progress.
I had a little time in the car on the way through Kansas to sort through and do some very (very) rough editing of my shots from our first day in Utah, and in my procrastination to get anything up on the blog in the last few days, I managed to get through the second day as well.
So let's see, where did I leave off? Ah yes, St. George. Lovely desert hamlet. Friendly people. We departed as early as we could muster the next morning for a 40-minute drive into Zion Nat'l Park. Almost immediately, the landscape became more rugged and riddled with red peaks jutting up from the middle of incredibly flat stretches of desert scrub.
(this following image is one of my faves from the day, though sadly it ended up a bit oversaturated during my in-car rudimentary postprocessing. This is one I'll work on once my picture monster desktop is up and running again in our new place.)
Oh, and one more note about the post-processing: after I started looking through the images, I noticed that HOLY HELL I have a lot of dust on my sensor. Maybe from switching lenses five or six (or more) times a day in Alaska? Or even more frequently here on the road trip? (that's rhetorical) The dust gets progressively worse through the first day and you'll notice some really bad dots on shots from the second day. I will be editing these spots out of the "keepers" but I need dear old Photoshop to do that well, so for now you can curse the evil dust along with me.
Because Zion is an incredibly popular park, there is almost no parking inside the park, and there is basically one main road that takes you to all of the sights, the National Parks people decided to limit the number of cars on the road in the park. Now, the main drag is accessible only by shuttle bus, and as we just didn't have the time to hop on, hop off, etc (and it was already upwards of 90 degrees at 9:30 am), we chose to drive on through the park and leave Zion unchecked on our bucket lists. But we certainly got an appreciation for the architectural peaks and mesas (buttes?), and we were there early enough in the morning to still have the moon hanging in the unbelievably blue sky:
And the drive, of course, was beautiful. We climbed up on a series of switchbacks that overlooked the main canyon of the park and then passed through two long tunnels carved into the side of the mountain. Here's a shot as we entered one of the tunnels, looking back through the side-view mirror at the stunning peaks behind us:
As we continued our drive through the park, we started to notice the fascinating patterns that the wind and weather had worn into the sandstone. Some of it, like this, was more of a horizontal slashing, while other patterns closer to the tops of peaks were more vertical:
And then we got to Checkerboard Mesa, so named for the horizontal and vertical slashing that creates a sort of grid on the side of this windswept mesa.
I could type out the explanation for this amazing geological phenomenon, but seeing as I took a picture of the sign at the viewpoint, I'll let you read it as I did:
I should have realized this was the Easternmost stop in the park when a busload of weary-looking European tourists unloaded and excitedly paced from one end of the viewpoint to the other, snapping pictures. Hey, when your first sight of Zion is Checkerboard Mesa ... well, I couldn't really blame them (too much) for hogging every good self-timed portrait shot. Sure enough, we soon exited the park and were on toward Bryce. We had one of those great road trip moments as we were driving along (well, NICK was driving along. I was staring, stupefied, out the window). We rounded a curve and it looked like we were going to be passing over a small river or a mini gorge or something: the land was pretty flat and there were no super duper special geological features on the near horizon. Then, out of nowhere, we drove over a little bridge and HOLY CRAP! The view off to the right was like a miniature Grand Canyon!! The picture didn't really work (I was kind of shooting into the sun and there was enough respiration from all of the trees out there that there was a bit of a haze), but maybe it'll give you a sense of something:
We had a pretty peaceful drive through the Utah backcountry as we approached Bryce Canyon National Park. Just outside of Bryce, we went through a portion of the Dixie National Forest known as Red Canyon, which was probably the most intense color I had seen in a long time.
There was a nice little pulloff and we stopped to take a few pictures, but we were also happy to feel that the temperature had dropped a few degrees (we had gained significant elevation). As we continued toward the Bryce entrance, we started seeing more and more reddish orange rock interspersed with the normal gray granite:
And then, voila! We were at Bryce. Thankfully, unlike Zion, you can drive the main road and its little offshoots, and we pulled into the first of many parking areas to explore the main "ampitheater." You can actually walk the whole rim of the ampitheater (so named because it's a crescent-shaped rim that envelopes a deep gorge filled with these AMAZING formations called Hoodoos) but we sadly didn't have time!
The Hoodoos are incredible, spiny, veiny spindles that are formed through erosion by water and ice and are distinct to this one small area of Utah. The presence of multiple kinds of sandstone layered on top of one another is what allows for the kind of weathering that produces these bizarre and fascinating formations. I realized, after looking through my pictures, that it's a) impossible to convey the magnitude of the expansive ampitheater, b) unlikely that pictures could give a sense of scale of the individual Hoodoos, and c) still awesome to see in pictures.
Nick and I wandered around Sunset Point and hiked a short trail up to Inspiration Point, all the while walking in a sort of dazed and amazed stupor. The beauty of this country leaves me speechless; that it CAN leave me (ME!) speechless is stupefying. It's easy to see why Native Americans worshiped gods of nature and natural forces: if we didn't have knowledge of geology, time, and science, wouldn't we also assume that supreme beings put those mountains, those hoodoos, those arches, in exactly the place they wanted? To be worshiped as pillars of strength and beauty, monuments so many thousands of times more beautiful and delicate, intricate and colossal than humans could ever dream of creating? As we drove around, Nick and I wondered when in the evolution of man did he begin to appreciate natural beauty? We know that early homo sapiens were drawn to water sources for food and survival and natural caves for shelter ... but when did we as a species begin to look at the world around us and have our breath taken away by the grandeur and grace? Does it date back to the same time we started making practical objects from an aesthetic point of view? Did nature inspire us to do that? It's enough to make the heads of a couple of agnostic thinky people like us spin (see them spinning?).
A little farther down the main drive in Bryce, we came across a pullout for a view of one lonely arch (Bryce doesn't have many):
And we saw so much more, but for the sake of brevity (I know, I know - TOO LATE!), I will just say that Bryce was someplace we really look forward to returning to for an extended stay and hiking. There are some great trails that are easily accessible to the average day hiker that take you down below the rim so you can hike with the hoodoos! And because Bryce is at 8000-9000+ feet elevation, even in the summer is it far more temperate than the other Utah parks. And once you acclimate to the incredibly wee amount of oxygen in the air at that height, I think a Bryce hiking/camping trip would be an excellent adventure indeed.
We had toyed with the idea of staying North of Bryce, just outside of Capitol Reef National Park, in the tiny hamlet of Torrey. The town has just 141 residents but somehow supports several restaurants and no fewer than six hotels ... go figure. Nick had read in our trust AAA Utah guide book about a locally famous restaurant called Cafe Diablo which, as we found out from our waitress, is listed in 1000 Places to See Before You Die. The food was divine, although the portions were absolutely mind-bogglingly huge. We each had an app (Nick had rattlesnake cakes, I had a duck salad with jicama slaw) and were so stuffed from those we were really glad we'd decided to split an entree (pumpkin seed-crusted local trout). The setting was totally idyllic and the food left us rested and relaxed. We decided to continue on through Capitol Reef and stay in Green River (it may have had something to do with nostalgia for the name ...). The drive through Capitol Reef lasted through the magic hour before dusk, and it could not have been more appropriately named!
We stumbled upon this one-room building along the road in the park, and although it was just being shaded by the adjacent peak, there was still enough light to capture the scene. This building was nearby and similar in appearance to the historic Fruita school, a one-room schoolhouse founded by the Mormons shortly after they settled the area, though there was no plaque at this building indicating its purpose or history.
We stopped to get one last panorama during the moments just before the sun set:
And thus ended our marathon day of National Park-ing. It couldn't have been better! We pulled into Green River late and exhausted but oddly energized. But it still hadn't really hit us that we were MOVING across the country instead of just VISITING some parks on vacation. The first revelations started to come the following day ...
Which I will blog about once my fingers have recovered from this post. =)
Monday, August 10, 2009
ROAD TRIP!
There are, of course, so many many things on which to write updates, but for now I will say that the weekend of moving madness was a) stressful, b) painful, and c) tearful. We were in a frenzy trying to get the place cleaned up and in the end, I believe we left it absolutely immaculate for our renters, who I hope will enjoy and appreciate the few plants that we left behind for her (the rest found a home with our newly married friends Kim and Jared!). We crashed at 12:30 and decided to allow ourselves to wake up whenever our bodies would allow, which ended up being around 7 am this morning. An hour and a half of loading the car and making final trash runs down, we piled ourselves and our belongings into the Prius and headed out for St. George, Utah, our first stop on the cross-country move.
The San Diego to Las Vegas drive we've done several times and, aside from the usual Riverside ugly and the traffic headaches, made it to Vegas in good time. This was the first time either of us have gone past Vegas on I-15, so I wasn't sure what to expect. At first, it was just dusty (like the 30 miles or so between the Nevada-Cali border and Vegas itself), but then the topography changed and we started seeing beautiful mesas and mountains with red streaks and striations. I was behind the wheel and I was concentrating mostly on not being blown off the road by the crazy winds with which we had dealt from Victorville on ... and then, all of a sudden, we dropped about a thousand feet in elevation in just a few miles and entered Arizona. The route on the GPS looked like the road was going to start winding, and within a couple miles the speed limit dropped from 75 to 55 and we started making hairpin turns through the most stunning and jaw-dropping mountains. The road had clearly been made by blasting to expand a very narrow valley and when we were driving through, it was just us, teeny little cars, insignificant against the scale of these iron-red monoliths standing like natural monuments to the gods that formed this amazing landscape. Talk about feeling small. We were both so in awe that it took me a few minutes to even say "Hey, get the camera!!" ME. I was just proud that I stayed on the road ...
This spectacular drive lasted just about 10 or 15 miles and then we were back to sweeping vistas that, though somewhat less grand in scale, were nonetheless beautiful. Sadly, we didn't get any shots off during that killer part of the drive, but even if we had, I'm not sure it would have captured the feeling of being any army of ants in steel boxes traversing the country at the foot of those mountains. It. Was. Ridiculous. Here are two that I pulled out of Nick's shots a few minutes later in the drive. I hope you can get a sense of the red color of the hills (the scenery in St. George is similar to this; in fact, our hotel is called the Best Western "Coral Hills" because of the color of the mountains ringing the town).
So the drive through the NW tip of Arizona was probably the best surprise of today's trip, but the worst surprise of the drive was in the aforementioned dusty stretch of Nevada between the Cali border and Vegas. Every time we drive this region, regardless of season, we always seen TONS of dust devils (you know, the cyclones of dust that are most typical of the Southwest). So, par for the course, we saw many many dust devils. I'm not terribly afraid of most natural disasters: we rode out a hurricane in Pensacola and I didn't bat an eye, we've shimmied through several earthquakes in SoCal, etc. But, good LORD, tornadoes have ALWAYS freaked me out. I remember one Dad's Weekend at Illinois, as my dad and I were driving back up to Chicago so I could spend the following Thanksgiving week at home, and it was stormy and nasty and we saw funnel clouds that made me clench so hard I probably took some of the seat with me. Terrified. And I remember squealing at dust devils, particularly when they came close to the road, on our last cross-country move, from Pensacola to San Diego. But I've become more immune to their creepy, crazy fear-inducing ways and now they don't bother me so much. So. On this particular drive today, I was cruising up I-15 and saw one after another after another. But they weren't huge. And THEN. Oh my goodness gracious. Nick was in the passenger seat reading so he didn't see it coming, but I saw a BIG ASS dust devil heading straight for the highway on a dead-on course to intersect me. I had just enough to time to gurgle something between "HELLLLLO!" and "HOLD ON!!" (I'm sure it came out "HELLON!") and Nick looked up to see swirling debris all around us. Thankfully, I also had a split second to check all of my mirrors and make sure no one was immediate to us, because that dust devil was as wide as all three lanes of the highway and maybe even wider and it blew me right into the next lane, even though I was prepared and was already course-correcting my steering in preparation. I couldn't believe we missed the pieces of truck tire rubber that were swirling around us. It took me a few seconds to realize my cruise control had kicked off ... but I just kept thinking "DUDE. I just drove through a tornado!" Awesome.
Tomorrow we are taking a more leisurely drive through some of Utah's National Parks (Zion, Bryce, and Capital Reef, plus Escalante). Nick will likely be doing most of the driving, and my camera will of course be at the ready ...
The San Diego to Las Vegas drive we've done several times and, aside from the usual Riverside ugly and the traffic headaches, made it to Vegas in good time. This was the first time either of us have gone past Vegas on I-15, so I wasn't sure what to expect. At first, it was just dusty (like the 30 miles or so between the Nevada-Cali border and Vegas itself), but then the topography changed and we started seeing beautiful mesas and mountains with red streaks and striations. I was behind the wheel and I was concentrating mostly on not being blown off the road by the crazy winds with which we had dealt from Victorville on ... and then, all of a sudden, we dropped about a thousand feet in elevation in just a few miles and entered Arizona. The route on the GPS looked like the road was going to start winding, and within a couple miles the speed limit dropped from 75 to 55 and we started making hairpin turns through the most stunning and jaw-dropping mountains. The road had clearly been made by blasting to expand a very narrow valley and when we were driving through, it was just us, teeny little cars, insignificant against the scale of these iron-red monoliths standing like natural monuments to the gods that formed this amazing landscape. Talk about feeling small. We were both so in awe that it took me a few minutes to even say "Hey, get the camera!!" ME. I was just proud that I stayed on the road ...
This spectacular drive lasted just about 10 or 15 miles and then we were back to sweeping vistas that, though somewhat less grand in scale, were nonetheless beautiful. Sadly, we didn't get any shots off during that killer part of the drive, but even if we had, I'm not sure it would have captured the feeling of being any army of ants in steel boxes traversing the country at the foot of those mountains. It. Was. Ridiculous. Here are two that I pulled out of Nick's shots a few minutes later in the drive. I hope you can get a sense of the red color of the hills (the scenery in St. George is similar to this; in fact, our hotel is called the Best Western "Coral Hills" because of the color of the mountains ringing the town).
So the drive through the NW tip of Arizona was probably the best surprise of today's trip, but the worst surprise of the drive was in the aforementioned dusty stretch of Nevada between the Cali border and Vegas. Every time we drive this region, regardless of season, we always seen TONS of dust devils (you know, the cyclones of dust that are most typical of the Southwest). So, par for the course, we saw many many dust devils. I'm not terribly afraid of most natural disasters: we rode out a hurricane in Pensacola and I didn't bat an eye, we've shimmied through several earthquakes in SoCal, etc. But, good LORD, tornadoes have ALWAYS freaked me out. I remember one Dad's Weekend at Illinois, as my dad and I were driving back up to Chicago so I could spend the following Thanksgiving week at home, and it was stormy and nasty and we saw funnel clouds that made me clench so hard I probably took some of the seat with me. Terrified. And I remember squealing at dust devils, particularly when they came close to the road, on our last cross-country move, from Pensacola to San Diego. But I've become more immune to their creepy, crazy fear-inducing ways and now they don't bother me so much. So. On this particular drive today, I was cruising up I-15 and saw one after another after another. But they weren't huge. And THEN. Oh my goodness gracious. Nick was in the passenger seat reading so he didn't see it coming, but I saw a BIG ASS dust devil heading straight for the highway on a dead-on course to intersect me. I had just enough to time to gurgle something between "HELLLLLO!" and "HOLD ON!!" (I'm sure it came out "HELLON!") and Nick looked up to see swirling debris all around us. Thankfully, I also had a split second to check all of my mirrors and make sure no one was immediate to us, because that dust devil was as wide as all three lanes of the highway and maybe even wider and it blew me right into the next lane, even though I was prepared and was already course-correcting my steering in preparation. I couldn't believe we missed the pieces of truck tire rubber that were swirling around us. It took me a few seconds to realize my cruise control had kicked off ... but I just kept thinking "DUDE. I just drove through a tornado!" Awesome.Tomorrow we are taking a more leisurely drive through some of Utah's National Parks (Zion, Bryce, and Capital Reef, plus Escalante). Nick will likely be doing most of the driving, and my camera will of course be at the ready ...
Friday, August 07, 2009
A Very Quick Update
ooooooooooooo, lahwday, lahwday, lord. Sorry for the lack of posts, but things here have been, uh, UNBELIEVABLY BUSY. Let's see ... since my last post we:
- Attended my friend Amanda's wedding here in SD. It was an absolutely beautiful and personal ceremony in the Rose Garden at Balboa Park, and the roses were in full bloom and the sun was shining brightly (maybe a pinch TOO brightly). Nick and I had a wonderful time and were so glad we were here to send Amanda and Andre on to a happy married life together.
- WENT TO ALASKA! Yes, we took a trip that we've always talked about and always wanted to do but never imagined we would at this stage of our lives. The trip was so incredible and I, of course, have a bajillion pictures to go through and once I start this process, I will blog about some of the highlights. BUT. That won't happen for a little while, because ...
- We're moving to Ohio! We got back from Vancouver on Aug 1 and have had this week to finish sprucing up the house for our renter, who moves in on Tuesday, Aug 11. The movers have been here yesterday (Thursday the 6th - my birthday!) and finished packing and loading the truck today. We start our cross-country drive in the trusty Prius on Monday, Aug 10!
- But in the interim, we are attended our friends Kim and Jared's splendid nuptuals this weekend! We strategically packed enough clothes to last us through this wedding weekend, the drive cross country, and the first week or so in Dayton. Which is, like, a LOT of different degrees of formality and preparedness for temperature swings. But we will finish cleaning and touching up the casa and still have enough time to party ourselves silly at what is sure to be the wedding blow-out of the year. WE LOVE YOU GUYS!
- We should get into Dayton on the 16th, a day ahead of Nick's check-in date of the 17th. We will be staying at the Wright-Patterson Inn on base for a couple of weeks (or less, if we find a place right away). I don't want to rush into signing a lease until I get a feel for the neighborhoods and we are sure we are picking the absolute hippest place in Dayton (an oxymoron? Perhaps).
There's a part of me that's really really hopeful that we can find hotels along the route to Ohio that have free wi-fi so that I can update y'all on our travel status ... but I thought I'd be updating like crazy from Alaska, and you can see that simply didn't happen. So I promise to try, but I can't promise to deliver.
Anyway, exciting times are here for the California Sinnokraks ... soon to be the Ohio Sinnokraks! To say that my emotions are mixed is a huge understatement. I'm sad to be leaving our little house. We closed on this place just three weeks before we were married, and so it's been not only our first house but it holds so many memories and reminders of how much we've been through ... on Nick's first deployment, I painted a couple of rooms, and whenever I'm in those rooms it makes me think about that time and what it meant to have him home. Every room has its "thing" and I think that while moving into a new place allows for all sorts of NEW memories to be created, I will sorely miss this home. I am SO going to miss the wonderful friends we've made here in San Diego. Thank GOD for Facebook!! I'm glad we'll be able to stay in touch and be part of each others' lives, even though Nick and I are so far away. And as for the weather ... let's just say that while I am going to LOVE having an autumn again, come next summer I may be cursing the heavens and dreaming of those San Diego 72 degree days ... But we are looking forward to what Ohio may hold for us. We already have all sorts of activities and short road trips planned, and I think we will find ways to celebrate the best of Dayton and its environs during our two years there. Only time will tell, and you KNOW I'll be keeping you all updated ...
- Attended my friend Amanda's wedding here in SD. It was an absolutely beautiful and personal ceremony in the Rose Garden at Balboa Park, and the roses were in full bloom and the sun was shining brightly (maybe a pinch TOO brightly). Nick and I had a wonderful time and were so glad we were here to send Amanda and Andre on to a happy married life together.
- WENT TO ALASKA! Yes, we took a trip that we've always talked about and always wanted to do but never imagined we would at this stage of our lives. The trip was so incredible and I, of course, have a bajillion pictures to go through and once I start this process, I will blog about some of the highlights. BUT. That won't happen for a little while, because ...
- We're moving to Ohio! We got back from Vancouver on Aug 1 and have had this week to finish sprucing up the house for our renter, who moves in on Tuesday, Aug 11. The movers have been here yesterday (Thursday the 6th - my birthday!) and finished packing and loading the truck today. We start our cross-country drive in the trusty Prius on Monday, Aug 10!
- But in the interim, we are attended our friends Kim and Jared's splendid nuptuals this weekend! We strategically packed enough clothes to last us through this wedding weekend, the drive cross country, and the first week or so in Dayton. Which is, like, a LOT of different degrees of formality and preparedness for temperature swings. But we will finish cleaning and touching up the casa and still have enough time to party ourselves silly at what is sure to be the wedding blow-out of the year. WE LOVE YOU GUYS!
- We should get into Dayton on the 16th, a day ahead of Nick's check-in date of the 17th. We will be staying at the Wright-Patterson Inn on base for a couple of weeks (or less, if we find a place right away). I don't want to rush into signing a lease until I get a feel for the neighborhoods and we are sure we are picking the absolute hippest place in Dayton (an oxymoron? Perhaps).
There's a part of me that's really really hopeful that we can find hotels along the route to Ohio that have free wi-fi so that I can update y'all on our travel status ... but I thought I'd be updating like crazy from Alaska, and you can see that simply didn't happen. So I promise to try, but I can't promise to deliver.
Anyway, exciting times are here for the California Sinnokraks ... soon to be the Ohio Sinnokraks! To say that my emotions are mixed is a huge understatement. I'm sad to be leaving our little house. We closed on this place just three weeks before we were married, and so it's been not only our first house but it holds so many memories and reminders of how much we've been through ... on Nick's first deployment, I painted a couple of rooms, and whenever I'm in those rooms it makes me think about that time and what it meant to have him home. Every room has its "thing" and I think that while moving into a new place allows for all sorts of NEW memories to be created, I will sorely miss this home. I am SO going to miss the wonderful friends we've made here in San Diego. Thank GOD for Facebook!! I'm glad we'll be able to stay in touch and be part of each others' lives, even though Nick and I are so far away. And as for the weather ... let's just say that while I am going to LOVE having an autumn again, come next summer I may be cursing the heavens and dreaming of those San Diego 72 degree days ... But we are looking forward to what Ohio may hold for us. We already have all sorts of activities and short road trips planned, and I think we will find ways to celebrate the best of Dayton and its environs during our two years there. Only time will tell, and you KNOW I'll be keeping you all updated ...
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